• 
• 
• 

Come Tuesday, US President Barack Obama will be announcing his new strategy on Afghanistan. He is widely expected to send another 30,000 or more American troops to fight the Taleban-led insurgency. Capping weeks of deliberation inside the White House, the address will be made at West Point military academy. This should be a defining moment for his presidency.

Besides convincing the weary American public about how the additional troops would complete the job in Afghanistan, Obama would also be laying out an exit strategy. The war is entering its ninth year and the White House has said they don't intend to stay there for another nine years.

At present, the United States has some 68,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, by far the largest share in this effort to eliminate the Taleban and their al-Qaeda affiliates.

The troop surge is part of an aggressive counter-insurgency campaign that will, apart from hunting down the bad guys, take up a people-centric approach. Obama is convinced that the international forces are not being out-fought but out-governed.

However, if they and their allies in Kabul could win the people over through good governance and make good their promise of delivering goods and services to the public, they believe the war could be won.

But to do that they will have to address the corrupt and ineffective governance of President Hamid Karzai. Reports in the media and the international community have repeatedly pointed out how incompetence and corruption in the Karzai administration has fuelled the insurgency.

Yet, despite public opposition in the US, Obama has decided against immediate withdrawal for fear that Afghanistan would fall into the hands of the Taleban and their al-Qaeda allies. But then again, staying put in Afghanistan is not the answer either.

After eight years and more than 900 deaths, the American public is growing restless. They have the right to ask about an exit strategy and Obama owes them clear and straight answers.

Indeed, success will require a strong commitment, not just from the US but from the host country, as well as the international community. Nato members will soon have to make their commitment known with regard to the new strategy from the US.

Karzai will have to do more to crackdown on corruption and widen his circle of power to include former competitors, as well as tribal leaders who could swing either to the Taleban side or the government side, depending how the powers in Kabul address their grievances.

Meanwhile, Washington will have to realise that a surge of troops alone cannot compensate for a government that doesn't have the support of its people. In other words, Karzai will have to be held accountable as well.